Children’s Thinking

Lecture 3

Methodology; Introduction to Piaget

Can Infants Use Their Own Names to Learn New Words?

(Bortfeld, et al., 2005)

Using the Headturn Preference Procedure, infants Maggie and Hannah were familiarized with two passages:

Maggie’s bike had big, black wheels Hannah’s cup was bright and shiny

The girl rode Maggie’s bike A clown drank from Hannah’s cup

The bell on Maggie’s bike was really loud The other one picked up Hannah’s cup

She knew Maggie’s bike could go very fast Hannah’s cup was filled with milk

The boy played with Maggie’s bike She put Hannah’s cup back on the table

Maggie’s bike always stays in the garage Some milk from Hannah’s cup spilled on the rug

Can Infants Use Their Own Names to Learn New Words?

After familiarization, infants were tested on their preference for four words:

bike cup feet dog

Naturalistic Observation

• In contrast to experiments, observation avoids artificiality and thus maximizes “external” or “ecological” validity (i.e., generalizability).

• But – observation lacks control and therefore does not provide a solid basis for drawing causal conclusions.

• Moreover, good observation is not trivial.

A Fish Story[Louis] Agassiz would ask the student when he would like to begin. If the answer was now, the student was immediately presented with a dead fish -- usually a very long dead, pickled, evil-smelling specimen -- personally selected by "the master" from one of the wide-mouthed jars that lined his shelves. The fish was placed before the student in a tin pan. He was to look at the fish, the student was told, whereupon Agassiz would leave, not to return until later in the day, if at all.

Samuel Scudder, one of the many from the school who would go on to do important work of their own (his in entomology), described the experience as one of life's turning points.

In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish.... Half an hour passed -- an hour -- another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around; looked it in the face -- ghastly; from behind, beneath, above, sideways, at three-quarters view -- just as ghastly. I was in despair. I might not use a magnifying glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish: it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my finger down its throat to feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in different rows, until I was convinced that that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me -- I would draw the fish, and now with surprise I began to discover new features in the creature.

When Agassiz returned later and listened to Scudder recount what he had observed, his only comment was that the young man must look again.

I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish! But now I set myself to my task with a will, and discovered one new thing after another.... The afternoon passed quickly; and when, toward its close, the professor inquired: "Do you see it yet?"

"No," I replied, "I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw before."

The day following, having thought of the fish through most of the night, Scudder had a brainstorm. The fish, he announced to Agassiz, had symmetrical sides with paired organs. "Of course, of course!" Agassiz said, obviously pleased. Scudder asked what he might do next, and Agassiz replied, "Oh, look at your fish!"

Jean Piaget: Master Observer

What is Development?

• Change of a certain sort– Orderly– Directional– Cumulative

• Behavior becomes more flexible and complex

• Behavior involves increasing differentiation and integration

What is Cognition?

• We usually use “thinking” to refer to higher order mental processes like judgment, problem solving, conceptualizing, etc.

• Here, we are concerned not only with these, but also with basic aspects of everyday mental processing.

• These include:– remembering– categorizing – representing the external world

The Object ConceptImplicit beliefs we all hold about objects.• We, and all other objects, coexist as physically distinct and independent entities within a common, all enveloping space• The existence of our fellow objects is fundamentally independent of our own interaction or non-interaction with them• An object’s behavior and existence is independent of our psychological contact with it

Infants’ Object Concept, Stage 1

Object Concept, Stage 2

• Passive expectation: if object disappears, infant will continue looking to the location where it disappeared, but will not search.

• In the infant mind, the existence of the object still very closely tied to schemes applied to experience

Object Concept, Stage 3

• Visual anticipation.

• If infant drops an object, and it disappears, the infant will visually search for it.

• Will also search for partially hidden objects

• But will not search for completely hidden objects.

Object Concept, Stage 4

• Infant will search for hidden object.

• Does infant understand the object as something that exists separate from the scheme applied to find the object?

• No. Evidence?

• A not B error.

A trials

The A not B task

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A trials

The A not B task

1

A trials

The A not B task

1

A trials

The A not B task

2

A trials

The A not B task

2

A trials

The A not B task

2

B trials

The A not B task

B trials

The A not B task

B trials

The A not B task

??

A not B error

• Infant continues to search at the first hiding location after object is hidden in the new location.

• Object still subjectively understood.

• Object remains associated with a previously successful scheme.

Object Concept, Stage 5.

• Can solve A not B.

• Cannot solve A not B with invisible displacement.

• Can only imagine the object as existing where it was last hidden.

• Invisible displacement requires the infant to mentally calculate the new location of the object.

Piaget, The Theorist

• Piaget made observations on a wide variety of behavioral phenomena, often inventing informal experiments to draw out critical performances.

• Piaget offered a grand constructivist theory of cognitive development, in which the child is seen as an active agent of his or her own mental growth.

Nature vs. Nurture

• Phrygia & preformationism• Behaviorism

– Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one of them at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.

Genetic Epistemology: A constructivist theory

• No innate ideas...not a nativist theory.• Nor is the child a “tabula rasa” with the

“real” world out there waiting to be discovered.

• Instead, mind is constructed through interaction with the environment; what is real depends on how developed one’s knowledge is

How does Piaget describe developmental change?

• Development occurs in stages, with a qualitative shift in the organization and complexity of cognition at each stage.

• Thus, children not simply slower, or less knowledgeable than adults instead, they understand the world in a qualitatively different way.

• Stages form an invariant sequence.

Stages of Cognitive Development

• (1) Sensorimotor (0-2 years)

• (2) Pre-operational (2-7 years)

• (3) Concrete Operational (7-11 years)

• (4) Formal Operational (11-16 years)

What develops? Cognitive structures

• Cognitive structures are the means by which experience is interpreted and organized: reality very much in the eye of the beholder

• Early on, cognitive structures are quite basic, and consist of reflexes like sucking and grasping.

• Piaget referred to these structures as schemes.

How do cognitive structures develop?

• Through assimilation and accommodation.

How do cognitive structures develop?

• Assimilation: The incorporation of new experiences into existing structures.

• Accommodation: The changing of an old structures so that new experiences can be processed.

• Assimilation is conservative, while accommodation is progressive.

Why accommodate?

• Normally, the mind is in a state of equilibrium: existing structures are stable, and assimilation is mostly occurring.

• However, a discrepant experience can lead to disequilibrium or cognitive “instability”

• Child forced to accommodate existing structures.

Active view of development

• Child as scientist• Mental structures intrinsically active

constantly in need of being applied to experience

• Leads to curiosity and the desire to know more• Development proceeds as the child actively

refines his/her knowledge of the world through many “small experiments”

Instructional learning viewed as relatively unimportant

• Teachers should not transmit knowledge, but should provide opportunities for discovery

• Child needs to construct or reinvent knowledge adult knowledge cannot be formally communicated to the child

• Limited importance of socio-cultural context; importance of peer interaction.

II: The Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years)

• Only some basic motor reflexes grasping, sucking, eye movements, orientation to sound, etc

• By exercising and coordinating these basic reflexes, infant develops intentionality and an understanding of object permanence.